Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator again for the question. I am pleased to inform the chamber that Australia’s current unemployment rates compare very favourably to those in other advanced economies. For example, in Europe unemployment rates are in excess of 10.1 per cent. In the United States it is around 9.6 per cent. What do we have in Australia? We have an unemployment rate of just over half of that—5.4 per cent. This is an extraordinary achievement, in an international economic situation where we still see many countries feeling the effects of the worst economic crisis in some 75 years. I am unsurprised that the other side is silent, because in the face of this they really have no answers.